


Re: Boot

by sawuhs



Series: Memento [2]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-13
Updated: 2012-05-13
Packaged: 2017-11-05 06:29:20
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,302
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/403398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sawuhs/pseuds/sawuhs
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She tells people that love is for children, but what she doesn't tell them is that love is something a part of us will always be.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Re: Boot

She tells people (she tells Loki) that love is for children, and it’s true, but what she doesn’t tell them is that love is something a part, no matter how small, of us will always be; a child. She tells herself it’s something she’s not, but love is something that will always _be,_ and she tells herself that that’s something she doesn’t need to know exists.

It doesn’t start with Budapest, but he thinks of her when she’s had hair, nice and long, and curly, and lips curved up far too sweetly and standing next to her in _this_ battlefield, he asks her if she remembers the sound of the snow back then (to him, it was a special day, and to _her-_ ). She smiles and tells him that he’s overly sentimental, and he’s frowning and pulling back the drawstring as he tells her that she’s the only one he gets sentimental about. He likes how she replies with another kill, another hit of the Widow’s Bite to _someone,_ he likes how she thinks he can’t see her hiding her smile.

It starts with the both of them being outcasts (she, a super-spy, him, a lover, a follower) at first, it starts with them being a threat to society. He was (is) in love with her, and she could use him. It was her wits that he fell hard for, her professionalism at the job, and her beauty, (remember the long fiery hair in the past, and the constant green-hazel eyes), that he fell even harder for. She didn’t mind his companionship in those nights, she still doesn’t now. He knows he’s still in love with her, and he calls her Natasha, he calls her Nat, he calls her Tasha, he tells the strangers at the bar she’s well-dressed and knew what to do. He tells himself she’ll love him back someday as long as he stays, and he knows he’s being used.

Back then in the nights where they shared beds, she closes her eyes when he plays with her curls, and he likes the smell of her hair, does, always bring lock to his nose, breathe in deep, and he tells her that she smells like strawberries and blood, and she laughs because she thinks that he’s ridiculous, he is, and she flutters her eyes close when he presses his lips to her head of red, she ignores the skips in her hearts, and she tells him that love is a game that she’s playing him with, and he says he doesn’t mind as he slides his hand down her bare stomach, he says to her that it’s fine as long as he has her.

And being the villains, he believes it’s normal when he takes her hand and licks the blood off her fingers. _It’s beautiful,_ he tells her, and he tells her that she’s beautiful far too often, something she likes, doesn’t, but she watches him through her eyes that tells him she wants him to stay, through her eyes too void of emotions, but he learns how to read her, it was hard, at first, but her eyes tell him that she needs him to _stay_ because love is something she’s trying to learn.

 _Clint,_ she’ll say, voice low, and she’ll wrap her hand(s) around his arm(s) that makes the kills she wants him to make, and he’ll be on his knees before her, staring up with brown, brown and green, it’s a ghastly yet amazing thing. They’ve dangerous eyes, and she’ll lick her own lips. _Clint,_ she’ll repeat herself, and he’ll press kisses to her thighs, _her thighs,_ and she have a knife in one of her hands, and she’s telling him that she wants him to stay in her own way, and when she says his name like that, the hair on the back of his neck stands because he knows who he’ll always be a slave to.

She doesn’t tell him that she admires him, a little, a lot, she doesn’t believe in love, (wants to), won’t. She admires him for letting her play him like a puppet for love, just for love. She doesn’t tell him how she can’t stop herself from opening up to him little by little. It’s difficult, this, and she tries to end things with him when Russia questions her loyalty. He leaves her instead, joins SHIELD, and she laughs when it happens because she’s beating herself up for _almost_ believing in love. She knows how’s it like to have your very being ripped away from your mind, something he finds out _later,_ and she knows how it feels. She finds herself running to SHIELD when she’s herself again, she finds herself running back to him, to Clint, (to _her_ Clint).

She tries not to think about how, in one way, this is him saving her, from herself, and she tries to leave the past years behind.

He doesn’t let her because he still loves her (and he always will), and he makes it a point to get himself put in every mission that she’s in, and it annoys her because she’s trying to do her job without any distractions, and he’s the biggest distraction she’ll ever have, she hides her smiles when he slips into her bed and wraps _those_ arms around her. She only prays that he doesn’t notice this, (he does), and she doesn’t like how her walls when she’s around him are fading fast. He tells her that she is his only queen, and that he hates it when they’re apart. He doesn’t tell her he knows why she returns his kisses, or his calls, and she can’t remember why he left and took back all his things to begin with. He tells her that he’s sorry, and she doesn’t forgive him _because._

 _Clint,_ she calls him, and he knows it’s that time again when it’s on his knees, it’s that time again when he says _please,_ and he wishes he could have remembered this day better because it’s the last time he sees her with her long, long hair. He would have asked her for strands of her hair for safe-keeping, for memory’s sake, but he knows she’s not one for sentiment, never will be, (will one day be), but he misses those long strands being twirled in his fingers as ( _today_ ) his chest is against her back and his kisses are on her neck, and their legs and hands twined together like they’re meant to be, and the things that he hears are her soft sighs and him telling her _oh, don’t you mind the war tonight,_ and he promises himself that isn’t her smile that he sees.

He misses her when they’re apart, and he sends her text messages like, _hey Tash, I’m bored,_ or, _missions aren’t fun without you around, Nat,_ or, _I miss you,_ and her replies go something along the lines of, _I’m in the middle of battle, Clint,_ or, _you’re such an annoyance,_ or, _I don’t miss you,_ but he knows what she’s trying to say from the way she never fails to reply his messages in less than a minute. He also knows that she is still telling herself she doesn’t believe in things like love, but even the strongest of beliefs can crumble eventually. He tells himself that he’ll be there for her when this happens. (He won’t be.)

And this is because it happens when she’s tied to a chair, and she composes herself, too darned well, when she hears what’s happened to Clint, never saw this coming, she believed (believes) that he’s almost unbeatable, only she can do it, only she can have him, and he’s not there when her heart’s racing and she’s taking it out on people she never intended to hurt _this_ much when she’s told by Phil that he’s been compromised. A part of her screams that she’s never hated anyone so much, and she still hides her emotions perfectly fine.

Phil knows how worried she is from the way she asks question after question about him when she’s at the helicarrier, and everyone else tries not to notice how she’s not behaving like herself as she keeps glancing over at the screens (and not even subtly) that run their search for him, from the way she looks at her phone like she’s hoping he’ll text her, but they know she’s lying to herself when she tells this one god that love is for children, and they tell themselves that it’s what she’s trying not to be, but they know better from the way she misses him.

She feels the pounding of her heart, and not from the hit she’s taken, the hit that leaves her more shaken than she already is ( _Clint, Clint, Clint_ ), she feels the pounding of her heart when she sees his back, and she almost but doesn’t cry when she sees the blue in his eyes, because it’s not his brown, not _her_ brown, and they’re fighting, _dancing,_ like the old times, she’s trying not to smile because she tells him that sentiment (love) is a silly thing. She’s not supposed to be running after him, and she lies to the god of lies that he’s only a ledger she wants to write off (and she’s far, _far_ too good at telling lies). She bites her lip when the first thing he says is her name, and she thinks about his arms wrapped around her when they were in bed during those nights.

He knows it’s that time again when she says _Clint_ , but that’s a time that can’t be now, because they _need_ to talk, she tells him not to do this to himself, and he’s watching her green-brown eyes and her short blazing hair, he tries not to tell her he’s missed her far too much, and he had been scared rotten because even with his mind taken, he could feel himself scared that he’ll never see her again, even if he doesn’t remember. He wants to cup her cheek and kiss her lips (like the old times), but war isn’t won by sentiment, and soldiers are something they must be.

They don’t say a thing when she’s the one crawling into his bed that night, and, _Clint,_ has her arms wrapped around him instead, tells him never to leave her again, that she’s been scared, and he doesn’t mention how he loves it when her emotions are scattered all over, just for him to see, and they have fist fights in bed because she tells him that’s how they’re meant to be, she tells him she doesn’t love him, and he knows now that that is a lie, because she does, but it doesn’t stop her from pretending that she doesn’t care. She’s crying because she _knows_ how her feelings for him are frightfully obvious. He presses his lips to her hair because it’s strawberries and blood and love and all things beautiful.

He makes a bet with Tony months later, when everything’s calm and peaceful (almost), and it’s _gold,_ because of what he’s heard about Tony and Loki, and he tells Tony that love is something Natasha will never admit, and Tony chuckles because he’s seen the way they are (her head on his shoulder, his arm on her shoulder), so Tony says, _let’s make a bet,_ and he says, _why the hell not?,_ and they make another bet that says Tony wouldn’t be chest deep in love with Loki, and Tony loses this bet, first, and the other bet will be won, but only in due time.

She punches him right in the guts when he tells her he loves her for the first time ever since he left her, and he lets her hit him, _Clint,_ and this means he’s on his knees, but this time _Natasha_ is what he’s whispering as his kisses on her are far too gentle for his own good, for her own good, for their own good. She tells him that love is destructive, and it’s not what she has for him, she tells him to look at Tony and Loki (and Thor), look at where love has brought the three of them, and he’s not leaning anymore because he’s kissing her lips and it’s nice and soft, and her eyes are closing because she doesn’t like how she’s pulling him closer, doesn’t like how she’s kissing back. She tells him that love is destructive, and he tells her that it’s human nature to be destructive, and she laughs, supposes that maybe that’s okay.

He asks her if she’ll grow her hair out again, and she doesn’t like how she’s smiling freely, but she’s laughing at him, and asking him _why_ even though she knows; and it’s more than just strawberries and blood, it’s Budapest and their nights in bed and back when they were a little younger and back when they were a little more crazy. He doesn’t tell her why, because he knows she knows, but he’s kissing her hair and then smelling it, he tells her she’s beautiful and that he loves her, and she says the same thing back to him one fine day, _I love you,_ but they both know that that’s not going to be the end of their story.

 _Love is for children,_ is what she used to say, and still does, just sometimes, because maybe she’s learning to properly be sentimental (he doesn’t tell her she does it in the wrong ways), she tells him that love is for children, but that’s something everyone will always be, and that for _that,_ she loves him, and perhaps that’s how they’re meant to be.

 _Clint,_ she still says, and he loves her more day by day.


End file.
